What Your Pet Sitter Won’t Tell You

As a conscientious pet owner, you have read multiple articles on how to screen and hire a pet sitter. Did you realize your pet sitter is also screening you? A great client isn’t just one who pays promptly, but one who understands the following:

1. Please do your sitter the courtesy of hiding anything you don’t want us to see. We’re not snoops, but your boudoir photo proofs on the kitchen counter might be hard to miss.

2. Please warn us ahead of time if you are a nudist.

3. You don’t have to imitate the late sainted Heloise, but a reasonably clean and tidy house makes animal care go faster and gives your sitter and pet more time to play.

4. If someone will be in and out of the house and/or borrowing the car, please inform your sitter. The time spent figuring out if someone is the housecleaner, contractor, brother-in-law or burglar is time spent not taking care of your pet.

5. The sitter is here to care for your pet, but not your teenagers. Yes, the kids will have guests over while you are gone. Just be happy they throw out the pizza boxes.

6. There is a difference between watering a couple house plants and tending a landscaped acre.

7. If your lock requires instructions to operate, it is time to fix or replace it. If you walk in your sitter’s shoes, you will be rewarded with a decades-long relationship of mutual consideration and respect. And they might just squeeze you in on December 23!